


When I was drowning that's when I could finally breathe

by blueeyesmakemecry (Blueeyesmakemecry)



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Ace!Mac, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jack loves his kid, Sexuality Crisis, no matter what
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:13:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28926357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blueeyesmakemecry/pseuds/blueeyesmakemecry
Summary: “I don’t feel… interested in people. I don’t want to kiss people, or, you know, do other stuff. But everyone else wants sex. It’s normal, and I’m not, because I just don’t feel any of that and I don’t know why. I think I’m broken.”Mac doesn't know why he feels the way he does. It's the sexuality crisis you probably have not heard of.
Relationships: Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	When I was drowning that's when I could finally breathe

Mac was dreading his date that night.

Alexis was a perfectly fine woman; there wasn’t any reason he shouldn’t want to go. She was objectively gorgeous -- with a short brunette bob, stunning blue eyes and deep dimples in her cheeks -- and she had a firecracker personality to match. Jack had pushed him (almost literally) to go talk to her when he caught her smiling at him in a bar the week before.

They had hit off that night and exchanged numbers, and with Jack and Riley’s urging, Mac asked her on a date. He should have told them no. But he’d been pleasantly tipsy and may have mistaken the alcohol warming his body for an attraction that wasn’t there.

Jack was always pushing him to stop working so much and to have more fun and meet new people. He supposed this date met all of those qualifications.

So he wasn’t surprised when, instead of feeling nervous but excited butterflies in his stomach as he approached the pub, his stomach tightened in the all-too-familiar feeling of first date dread.

But despite his worries, he had fun on the date with Alexis.

Until the very end.

Mac walked her to her car and kissed her, because he knew he was supposed to. Jack had made sure to tell him that before he left that night. Alexis deepened the kiss, stepping closer to him and pushing their bodies together.

When he took a step back to put some distance between them, she followed. Mac didn’t know what he was supposed to be feeling. All he could think about was how long he had to do this before he could stop without making her think he wasn’t interested.

Because he was. Interested, that is.

Interested in her as a person, in her loud laugh and the passion in her eyes when she talked about teaching. He just wasn’t interested in this part of the date. Or anything that would come after this part. With every passing second, he felt more self conscious. Was he doing it right? What if he was actually a terrible kisser and she was only kissing him to not hurt his feelings? What would people think of them, making out like teenagers against her car in a parking lot?

It wasn’t terrible. There were just a thousand other things he’d rather be doing. Like tinkering with the LiDAR mapping system he and his old Army buddy Robert Reese were testing. Or helping Bozer with Sparky. Or being back in the pub booth where they had been ten minutes ago, laughing and chatting.

He felt her hand cup his ass and he let it linger there for five seconds -- he counted them slowly in his head -- before he stepped back.

“Want to come to my place tonight?” Alexis asked, slightly breathless. Her eyes were filled with lust, but all Mac could think about was how much he _did not_ want to go back to her place with her. He was glad he had an excuse ready.

“I would love to, but I have to be at work early tomorrow.”

Alexis pouted and he pressed a chaste kiss to her lips and took several steps back.

“I had a lot of fun tonight,” he said. “I’ll text you later?”

He sighed in relief as she drove away, running his fingers through his hair.

Mac initially had chalked his hesitancy with intimacy up to being a geek. It’s not like he and Bozer had been ladies men in high school, and that didn’t change much at MIT.

He wasn’t averse to the idea of sex. It just didn’t feel right to him. A friend from MIT, Jordan, always painted far too vivid a picture for them after he’d hooked up with a woman. He spoke of a desperate longing he felt for sex when he’d gone without for a day or too. Everyone else laughed and agreed, but Mac snorted.

He probably could go the rest of his life without sex and be fine. But he knew that wasn’t normal, and didn’t say anything.

Then he fell hopelessly in love with Frankie, but looking back, he suspected the puppy love had more to do with the fact that she was unattainable than anything else. He didn’t have to be scared things would progress further than he was comfortable with, or worry he would do something wrong.

Mac remembers the first man he’d slept with, his sophomore year at MIT, when he was desperate to figure out his sexuality and willing to do pretty much anything to get there. He figured if he wasn’t attracted to women, maybe he was attracted to men and was just too scared to do anything about it.

He’d been at the only LGBTQ bar in Cambridge. He asked the bartender for three shots of Patron. If he was going to do this, he would need some liquid courage. He downed the shots one after another, grimacing as the liquor burned his throat.

He felt the effect of the alcohol almost immediately and turned to the dance floor before the booze wore off. Almost immediately, he felt someone’s hands on his hips, their body pressed close to his back.

He turned his head to see a tall, muscular brunette with piercing green eyes. The man smiled at him, and the corner of his eyes crinkled. The touch felt nice, and Mac tried to force himself to relax, to let himself enjoy the moment and dance.

“I’m Simon,” the man had said, his lips just inches away from Mac’s ear. “Do you want to get another drink?”

Mac nodded and let himself be led back to the bar.

By the time Simon led him into his apartment, he was on the edge of being too drunk.

Simon leaned in, his hand cupping the back of Mac’ neck. He kissed him, and as Mac mechanically kissed back, his initial anxiety faded into a strained boredom. He felt the urge to be somewhere else, doing something more exciting. He shook the feeling off – this was supposed to be fun and he was supposed to be turned on.

Simon’s hand dropped lower from his waist, to the small of his back, then slid down to cup his butt. He sucked at Mac’s tongue obscenely and pressed closer to him. The kiss was escalating so fast, and Mac didn’t know if he would be able to stop things, even if he wanted to. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to.

He didn’t enjoy kissing, but he didn’t _not_ enjoy it either. His breath hitched a little when Simon’s tongue licked everywhere and rubbed along his teeth. Mac shivered a bit and tried his best not to focus too hard on the hand running from his waist to his thigh and back up again.

The sex itself was a blur.

“That...was amazing,” Simon huffed afterward. Mac stayed quiet. He didn’t know what it was, but amazing was most definitely not the word to describe it.

Simon quickly joined the list of failed relationships and hookups he’d had in his life, a place Mac desperately hoped Alexis wouldn’t land.

There had been Penny, who he’d met at a college party, who called him “darling” and confessed she was only trying to find a third for her and her boyfriend. And Janie, a fellow engineering student who had seemed so nice in class, but spent the entire date talking about herself. Tanner had tried to get him to sleep with him before they even got to the restaurant on the first date. Michael cheated on him with his ex-boyfriend. Mackenzie had laughed at him when he confessed he wasn’t happy at MIT, and was thinking about joining the Army.

“What a waste of potential,” she’d said. They had been together for six months, the longest relationship Mac ever had at that point. He ended things that night.

And Nikki...Things with Nikki were complicated. Sex with Nikki had never been spectacular. It was more of a chore than anything. She was always so harsh, critiquing every move he made. Sometimes, it seemed like nothing he did was right. He enjoyed the physical aspects -- cumming felt just as satisfying as it did when he got himself off -- but that was about it.

She always instigated any sexual acts, and never let him forget that. It wasn’t uncommon for her to berate him or start an argument over sex.

But Mac loved her — or so he thought he did. Turns out, he barely even knew her.

After he’d found out about her supposed deep cover CIA op, she had emailed him. The subject line was “I’m sorry, Mac.”

Mac had been on the back deck with Jack, Riley and Bozer when the email notification popped up on his phone’s screen. Expecting an actual apology, Mac didn’t worry about reading it in front of his friends. If it was terrible, they could laugh about it.

So he clicked on it.

_Mac:_   
_I’m sorry to do this in writing, but I didn’t think I could face you to say it in person. I know you think we can pick things up and go back to the way we were before, but I just can’t do that. I’m sorry. I wish I could say it’s me, and not you, but that’s not the truth. I’m done, Mac. I need someone who can give me what I need, sexually, and I can tell you just aren’t into it. It’s not enough. You might want to get your hormones checked, or do some soul searching about your sexuality, because I’ve never seen a straight man react to sex the way you do. I hope you find someone who is right for you. I really did love you._   
_Nikki_

Ouch. Well that hurt. Mac felt near tears as he set his phone down, mumbling an excuse so he could get away from his friends. He didn’t want to cry in front of them. The house blurred in front of him as tears filled his eyes.

Mac stumbled into the bathroom and collapsed onto the ground, his back pressed against the wall. Even though Nikki had brought up similar things in arguments in the past, it hurt to see it written out so plainly in an email. He opened the email again on his phone. He was unable to stop himself from reading it over and over again. He’d read it for the fifth time when he heard a gentle knock at the door. He knew it was Jack before his overwatch said a word.

“You can come in, Jack,” Mac said, roughly scrubbing the tears out of his eyes.

Jack came and sat down next to him on the bathroom floor.

“What’s up, hoss? Looked like you got some bad news out there. Anything you want to talk about?”

Mac shook his head, but then moments later shoved the phone at Jack. He couldn’t read it out loud. Mac watched Jack’s face darken as he read the message from Nikki.

“Son of a--” Jack cursed, slamming his fist onto the bathroom wall. Mac rescued his phone from Jack’s hand before he threw it and broke it. “You know she’s wrong, Mac, right? She’s talking crazy. I don’t know everything about your sex life with her, but you guys argued about it quite a bit, right?”

Mac nodded.

“It’s why everyone I’ve ever been with has left me,” he said softly. “I’m just -- I’ve been trying to figure out what’s wrong with me so I can fix it, and then maybe no one else will leave me.”

“There is nothing -- nothing, you hear me? -- wrong with you,” Jack said, and Mac was surprised at the fierceness in his voice.

“How can there not be? It’s not that Nikki was the wrong girl. I just -- I don’t feel like normal people do,” Mac choked back a sob. “I don’t feel… interested in people. I don’t want to kiss people, or, you know, do other stuff. But everyone else wants sex. It’s normal, and I’m not, because I just don’t feel any of that and I don’t know why. I think I’m broken.”

Mac buried his head in his knees to hide his face from Jack.

“I’ve thought maybe I was gay, and like, in denial about it,” Mac mumbles. He doesn’t even know if Jack can hear him. “Then bi, maybe, because I didn’t feel any different about men than I did women. Or maybe I’m a sociopath like Murdoc and I’m just not capable of loving someone like everyone else does. No one is ever going to love me if they have to accept that I may not ever want to have sex with them. Everyone knows sex doesn’t equal love, but you never hear it the other way around. You never hear of love without sex.”

Mac felt Jack’s hand gently curl around the back of his neck. The pressure was comforting. He turned and buried his head in Jack’s chest, letting himself break down in his arms. Jack kissed the top of his head, which only made him cry harder.

Mac must have fallen asleep, because when he woke up, he was in his bed. Jack’s snores drifted into his room from where he was passed out on the couch in the living room.

He tried to go back to sleep, but his mind was restless. Jack’s reaction hadn’t been what he thought it would be. He didn’t think Mac was a freak. He didn’t hate him.

Mac opened up Google. He wouldn’t be able to sleep until he had more information.

Mac took a deep breath, his fingers dancing over the keyboard.

_Felt no chemistry on date._

Mac held his breath as the results came up. There were so many links. Most were from dating websites, telling him to wait it out and give the girl another chance. But none of them told him why he felt so uncomfortable with the idea of that chemistry or connection.

It took him almost a half hour of searching and reading before he found something that caught his interest. He had tried different search terms, even clicking around past the third or fourth page on Google to see what he might be missing.

The header on the website said ‘The Asexuality Visibility and Education Network.’ Mac had never heard of asexuality before, other than in biology classes when they talked about how plants reproduce. But he assumed it wasn’t that.

He clicked on the link, intrigued. A purple and white banner popped up and Mac quickly scanned the page.

“An asexual person is a person who does not experience sexual attraction.” Doesn’t experience sexual attraction? He thought everyone experienced sexual attraction. Wasn’t that a part of what made people human?

Those words were plastered at the top of the page in large font, right next to a button prompting him to learn more He nervously clicked on it, not sure how much more he wanted to know about asexuality. The about page was basic, talking about how asexuality was a sexual orientation, how asexual people could still get crushes and fall in love.

“An asexual is someone who does not experience sexual attraction. Unlike celibacy, which people choose, asexuality is an intrinsic part of who we are. Asexuality does not make our lives any worse or any better, we just face a different set of challenges than most sexual people. There is considerable diversity among the asexual community; each asexual person experiences things like relationships, attraction, and arousal somewhat differently.”

He read on, about the difference between romantic and sexual attraction. About how asexual people could still feel romantic attraction, even if they didn’t have sexual attraction. About arousal and identities and relationships.

It was a lot of information for Mac to take in at once, especially considering it was only one page on the site. But nevertheless, he read through the whole section, eyes skimming across the page, heart beating faster with every word. What if he was asexual?

He had more questions than answers swirling through his mind, and he needed to clear things up. Mac clicked into the forum section of the site. Maybe reading what real people had to say about asexuality would help him understand.

The more he read, the more he realized these people could have been describing his own life in their posts. They were talking about an overall indifference to sex, about vanishing feelings as soon as a relationship started, about not getting the overwhelming obsession about sex.

“I’m beginning to think I just don't like sex, don't feel the need for it, would rather do a pile of ironing as that is less of a chore!”

“I’ve had two partners, a boy and a gender-fluid person, and both times I’ve been emotionally attracted to them but kissing just feels bleh, and led to me breaking up with them.”

“I didn't know there was a difference between what I felt (damn, those cheekbones, so pretty), and what others felt (hot damn, 10/10, would bang.)”

“When my friends started talking about crushes, I thought I understood, because I'm a romantic dork, and hand-holding and cuddling sounds nice. I didn't understand FOR YEARS there was a difference in how we saw our respective crushes.”

The descriptions so readily matched how he’d been feeling about his sexuality that he found himself gaping. He skimmed the forums and mouthed the words to himself: asexual and biromantic.

He thought about the magnitude of this realization and the permanence of it, that he would never wake up one day experiencing sexual attraction.

He read a lot of articles and forum posts insisting asexual people weren’t broken, but he couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a way to fix this.

“You OK, kiddo?” Mac jumped at Jack’s voice. He turned to see him standing in the doorway, eyes still filled with sleep.

“I-I think I am,” Mac said. “I think I -- I think I’m asexual.”

He said the last part in a rush and stared at his feet, too nervous to look to see the expression on Jack’s face.

“I gotta say, hoss, I don’t know what that is,” Jack said. “But you know I love you no matter what. If you’re sexual, asexual, bisexual, gay, straight, whatever. I’m here for you. Now come on, I made breakfast. Let’s get you fed and we can talk more.”

Mac should have known Jack wouldn’t judge him. Especially after the night before.

As Mac and Jack walked to the kitchen, Jack put an arm around Mac’s shoulders, pulling him close.

“I love you, kid, ain’t nothing going to change that.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love the headcanon of asexual!Mac, but there doesn't seem to be any fanfics for it. So I wrote my own. 
> 
> Asexual representation matters! 
> 
> (These are based off my own experiences, so I apologize if it offends anyone)


End file.
